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Advertising watchdog bans Virgin Media ads

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Posted 9th April 2009 at 2:25pm by Alex Buttle

Virgin Media Logo

Virgin Media has been rapped by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over a recent promotional campaign.

The watchdog ruled that claims made in a national campaign about the broadband speeds homeowners could receive were unsubstantiated.

Rivals BSkyB lodged a complaint suggesting that it would be impossible for Virgin's network to provide all homes with broadband speeds of 20Mb.

The broadcaster said that Virgin lacks the network capacity to supply all subscribers with the maximum speed at the same time.

After seeking a response from Virgin, the ASA upheld the complaint that the claim "10 out of 10 homes with our fibre optic broadband can get 20Mb" is misleading.

"Because we had not seen data demonstrating that all Virgin's 20Mb cable broadband customers could achieve the headline speed in the home, we concluded that Virgin had not substantiated that claim," the advertising regulator said.

The ASA also challenged another line from the same advert which read: "70% of homes in the UK can't get 8Mb over BT phone lines", suggesting the claim was potentially misleading to customers.

More news on: Virgin Media, Broadband speeds, Cable broadband

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3 comments

  • Antony, 10th April 2009.

    i have virgin media 10mb cable, and have had it a while now. always get near enough 10mb every time i do a speed test. i averagely get 9.84 Mb through out all times of the day. i used to be on BT 8Mb option, and was paying something like £26. However my area could not get more than 2Mb. so i decided to switch to virgin media. so far its been the best switch ever, its never disconnected, had maintenance or gone wrong. so i would recommend any one living in a cable area to get virgin media broadband.

    Reply

  • Rod Hatton, 12th April 2009.

    I have just signed up for Virgin Media 20mb broadband. I have done a speed test and I am getting less than 1mb at peak time in the evening.
    I think it is disgusting that Virgin sshould make these claims.

    Reply

  • Kevin Baird, 1st December 2009.

    I have was a telewest customer before being taken over by virgin for a good few years.

    I find 2 out of 8 times u check your broadband speed, u'll find its close but not quite what ur paying for. The rest of th time it falls way short.

    SayinG that i have just upgraded to 50mb, mainly because it's cheaper than what i was getting th 20meg for.

    Reply

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